History of language as a linguistic discipline 


Мы поможем в написании ваших работ!



ЗНАЕТЕ ЛИ ВЫ?

History of language as a linguistic discipline



LECTURE 1

HISTORY OF LANGUAGE AS A LINGUISTIC DISCIPLINE

Sources Used for Studying Language History

Every living language changes through time, but no records of linguistic changes have ever been kept, as most changes pass unnoticed by the contemporaries. Therefore, the main source for the history of any language is written documents that have come down to us. And on the basis of these documents a language history is reconstructed. As for documents themselves, they give a clear picture of the vocabulary and grammar of a certain period. As for phonetic structure, such documents do not always give clear enough information, for, as we have already discussed, sound may change but spelling remains or, as often as not, one letter may denote different sounds, etc. So in this sense written documents may be misleading. Nevertheless, study of pronunciation of a particular period may be helped by illiterate spellings which are found in private letters and diaries as they are mostly phonetic. (Remember the example with lite = light). So they can give a clue to the pronunciation of this or that word. Some hints are proved by rhymes. For example, careful study of words, which in spite of similar spelling, do not rhyme together, may help to establish phonetic differences hidden by the spelling. For example, a rhyme light – write gives good reason to suppose that digraph ghwas no longer pronounced at the time the text was written. In many instances the availability of extant texts is not sufficient to explain some phenomena of the language in question. That is why scholars may resort to studying related languages,(the comparative method) which have older written records as is the case, for example, with Gothic, namely the translation of the Bible made in the 4th century AD, while the earliest documents written in Old English date about 7th century AD. Besides related languages, English can be compared to other languages of the Indo-European family, namely those which came into contact with. For example, Latin and French. Certain information about the early stages of English and Germanic history is to be found in the works of ancient historians and geographers, especially Roman. They contain descriptions of Germanic tribes, personal names and place-names. Some data are also provided by early borrowings from Germanic made by other languages. Another way of looking into the history of a language is the method of internal reconstruction (Note 6). It is based on comparing different forms of the language at different linguistic levels taken during different periods in the history of its development. Its adherents maintain that a language is a well organised and well balanced structure of elements. Hence, if among the productive systems of the language there occur some smaller, non-productive systems, once can assume that they are relics of preceeding stages of development. When traced into the past, these systems appear more numerous and more productive. For example, modern irregular plurals like oxen, teeth, etc. were found in larger groups of nouns at an earlier period. It follows that the past history of a language can be reconstructed by considering its dialectal varieties, since dialects often preserve forms, words or pronunciations which have become obsolete in the literary standard.       misleading – confusing   digraph- диграф extant- still existing in spite of being very old     internal reconstruction внутренняя реконcтрукция   adherent – someone who supports a particular belief, plan, political party etc assume- suppose relics- traces, remains of smth  

LECTURE 2

GERMANIC LANGUAGES

Table 1

Germanic Languages

East Germanic     North Germanic     West Germanic
- dead, no longer exist - Gothic, came down to us in the translation of the Bible by the Gothic Bishop Ulfilas, 4th A.D. (the Scandinavian group) - Swedish (Sweden, partly in Finland) - Norwegian (Norway, partly in Denmark) - Danish (Denmark, partly in Sweden) - Icelandic (Iceland) - Faroese (the Faroe Islands) - English (Britain, the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Caribbean Islands, etc) - German (Germany, Austria, Luxemburg, Liechtenstein, partly in Switzerland - Dutch (the Netherlands) - Flemish (Flanders, Belgium) - Afrikaans (the South African Republic) - Frisian (partly in the Netherlands and Germany(might be viewed as a dialect) - Yiddish (the language of the Jewish population of Eastern Europe spoken in X-XII c.c.); in different countries)

 

 

Table 2

Material Culture

According to Julius Caesar, the Germans were pastoralists, and the bulk of their foodstuffs—milk, cheese, and meat—came from their flocks and herds. Some farming was also carried out, the main crops being grain, root crops, and vegetables. Both the cattle and the horses of the Germans were of poor quality by Roman standards. The Iron Age had begun in Germany about four centuries before the days of Caesar, but even in his time metal appears to have been a luxury material for domestic utensils, most of which were made of wood, leather, or clay. Of the larger metal objects used by them, most were still made of bronze, though this was not the case with weapons. Pottery was for the most part still made by hand, and pots turned on the wheel were relatively rare. The degree to which trade was developed in early Germany is obscure. There was certainly a slave trade, and many slaves were sold to the Romans. Such potters as used the wheel—and these were very few—and smiths and miners no doubt sold their products. But in general the average Germanic village is unlikely to have used many objects that had not been made at home. Foreign merchants dealing in Italian as well as Celtic wares were active in Germany in Caesar's time and supplied prosperous warriors with such goods as wine and bronze vessels. But from the reign of Augustus onward, there was a huge increase in German imports from the Roman Empire. The German leaders were now able to buy whole categories of goods—glass vessels, red tableware, Roman weapons, brooches, statuettes, ornaments of various kinds, and other objects—that had not reached them before. These Roman products brought their owners much prestige, but how the Germans paid for them is not fully known.

 

Warfare

 

In the period of the early Roman Empire, German weapons, both offensive and defensive, were characterized by shortage of metal. Their chief weapon was a long lance, and few carried swords. Helmets and breastplates were almost unknown. A light wooden or wicker shield, sometimes fitted with an iron rim and sometimes strengthened with leather, was the only defensive weapon. This lack of adequate equipment explains the swift, fierce rush with which the Germans would charge the ranks of the heavily armed Romans. If they became entangled in a prolonged, hand-to-hand grapple, where their light shields and thrusting spears were confronted with Roman swords and armour, they had little hope of success. Even by the 6th century, few of the Germanic peoples had adequate military equipment.

 

Form of Government

No trace of autocracy can be found among the Germans whom Caesar describes. The leading men of the pagi (kindred groups) would try to patch up disputes as they arose, but they acted only in those disputes that broke out between members of their own pagus. There appears to have been no mediatory body at this date. In fact, in peacetime there appears to have been no central authority that could issue orders to, or exercise influence over, all the pagi of which any one people was composed. In wartime, according to Caesar, a number of confederate chieftains were elected, but they were joint leaders and held office only in time of war. By Tacitus' time a new type of military chieftainship had come into being. For this office only the members of a recognized “royal clan,” such as is known to have existed among the 1st-century Cherusci and Batavians, the 6th-century Heruli, and others, were eligible. Any member of this royal clan was eligible for election, and the chieftainship was in no way hereditary. A chief of this type held office for life and had religious as well as military duties. He could be overruled by the council of the leading men, and his proposals to the general assembly of the warriors might be rejected by them. The degree of his influence depended largely on his own personal qualities. A rudimentary judicial apparatus had come into existence among the Germanic peoples by Tacitus' time. The general assembly elected a number of the leading men to act as judges, and these judges traveled through the villages to hear private suits. Each of them was accompanied by 100 attendants to lend authority to his decisions. A person who was found guilty by these judges had to pay a number of horses or cattle proportionate to the gravity of his offense. But many disputes (e.g., those arising from homicide, wounding, or theft) continued to be settled by the kindreds themselves, and the blood feuds to which they gave rise might continue from generation to generation. Long after the conversion to Christianity the German rulers found it difficult to stamp out the blood feud..The monarchy did not become fully established in the Germanic world until German peoples had settled as federates inside the Roman Empire, and the leaders of the Ostrogoths in Italy, the Visigoths in Gaul and Spain, the Vandals in Africa, and so on are the first Germanic kings. Other famous German chieftains in this period, such as Athanaric and Alaric, who either lived outside the Roman frontier or whose peoples were not federates settled in the provinces under a treaty (foedus) to defend the frontier, seem to have had little more personal authority than the leaders described by Tacitus.

 

Conversion to Christianity

 

Evidence suggests that before the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476, none of the great Germanic peoples was converted to Christianity while still living outside the Roman frontier, but that all the Germanic peoples who moved into the Roman provinces before that date were converted to Christianity within a generation. The Vandals seem to have been converted when in Spain in 409–429, the Burgundians when in eastern Gaul in 412–436, and the Ostrogoths when in the province of Pannonia about 456–472. In all these cases the Germans embraced the Arian form of Christianity (Note 9); none of the major Germanic peoples became officially Catholic until the conversion of the Franks under Clovis (496) and of the Burgundians under Sigismund. The reason for their adoption of Arianism rather than Catholicism is very obscure. The last Germanic people on the European continent to be converted to Christianity were the Old Saxons (second half of the 8th century), while the Scandinavian peoples were converted in the 10th century. England had been converted in the 7th century.

Germanic Alphabets and Old Germanic Writings

Germanic tribes used 3 different alphabets for their writings which partly succeeded each other in time.

The earliest of these was the Runic alphabet (Note 10) each separate letter being called a rune. The word rune originally meant ‘secret’, ‘mystery’ and hence came to denote inscriptions believed to be magic. According to scholars, this alphabet was derived either from Latin or from some other Italic alphabet, close to Latin, in the 2nd c. A.D. somewhere on the Rhine or the Danube where the Germanic tribes came into contact with Roman culture. This alphabet was used by such tribes as the Goths, Anglo-Saxons and Scandinavians. The runes were used as letters, each symbol indicating a separate sound. Besides, a rune could also represent a word beginning with that sound and was called by that word. For example, the rune denoted the sound [θ], [ð] was called ‘thorn’ and could stand for OE Þorn (NE thorn). The letters of the runic alphabet are angular, straight lines are preferred, curved lines are avoided. This is due to the fact that runic inscriptions were cut in hard material: stone, bone or wood. The shapes of some letters resemble those of Greek and Latin; others have not been traced to any known alphabet.

The number of runes in different OG languages varied from 28 to 33 runes in Britain against 16 or 24 on the continent. That is the number of runes in England was larger: new runes were added as new sounds appeared in English. Neither on the mainland nor in Britain were the runes ever used for everyday writing or for putting down poetry and prose works. Their main function was to make short inscriptions on objects, often to bestow on them some special power or magic.

The two best known runic inscriptions in England are the earliest extant OE written records. One of them is an inscription on a box called the ‘Franks Casket, the other is a short text on a stone cross known as the Ruthwell Cross. The Franks Casket was discovered in the early years of the 19th c. In France, and was presented to the British Museum by a British archeologist A.W. Frank. The Casket is a small box of whale bone; its four sides are carved: there are pictures in the centre and runic inscription around. The longest of them, in alliterative verse, tells the story of the whale bone, of which the Casket is made.

The Ruthwell Cross is a 15ft tall cross inscribed and ornamented on all sides. The principal inscription has been reconstructed into a passage from an OE religious poem” The Dream of the Rood”, in which Christ’s Passion is told from the point of view of the Cross on which he was crucified. The Cross speaks: Ic wæs miÞ blodi bistemid (Old English translation) (I was with blood bedewed).

Many runic inscriptions were preserved on weapons, coins, amulets, tombstones, rings, various cross fragments. Some runic insertions occur in OE manuscripts written in Latin characters. The total number of runic inscriptions in OE is about 40; the last of them belong to the end of the OE period.

Next came Ulfiala’s Gothic alphabet used in his translation of the Bible. It’s a peculiar alphabet based on the Greek alphabet with some admixture of Latin and Runic letters. (The Gothic alphabet should not be confused with the so-called Gothic script which is used in German writings and is a modified version of Latin script).

The latest alphabet to be used by the Germanic tribes is the Latin alphabet. It superceded both the Runic and the Gothic alphabets when a new technique of writing was introduced, namely that of spreading some colour or paint on a surface instead of cutting or engraving the letters. The material used for writing was either parchment or papyrus. Introduction of the Latin alphabet accompanied the spread of Christianity and Christian religious texts written in Latin. Since the Latin alphabet was adequate to represent all the sounds of Germanic languages, it was adapted to the peculiar needs of the separate languages. For example, to denote the dental fricative [θ], [ð] the runic Þ was used (derived from Latin D).

Ulfilas’s Bible, otherwise called the Silver Code (Codex Argenteus) is kept in Sweden. Along with other OG writings, next comes the Old High German Song of Hilderbrandt, a fragment of an epic, 8th century, and the Beowulf, an OE epic, probably written in the 8th c. Then come Old Icelandic epic texts collected in the so-called Older Edda comprising songs written down in the 13 c.

A most important role in the history of the English language was played by the introduction of Christianity. The first attempt to introduce the Roman Christian religion was made in the 6th century during the supremacy of Kent. In 597 a group of missionaries from Rome dispatched by Pope Gregory the Great landed on the shore of Kent. They made Canterbury their centre and from there the new faith expanded to Kent, East Anglia, Essex, and other places. The movement was supported from the north; missionaries from Ireland brought the Celtic variety of Christianity to Northumbria. In less than a century practically all England became Christianized.

The introduction of Christianity gave a strong impetus to the growth of learning and culture. Monasteries were founded all over the country, with monastic schools attached. Religious service and teaching were conducted in Latin. A high standard of learning was reached in the best English monasteries, especially in Northumbria as early as the 8th and 9th centuries. During the Scandinavian invasions the Northumbrian culture was largely wiped out and English culture shifted to the southern kingdoms, most of all to Wessex, during the reign of Alfred the Great. From that time till the end of the OE period, Wessex with its capital at Winchester remained the cultural centre of England.

OE scribes used two kinds of alphabet: runic and Latin. The bulk of the OE records is written in Latin characters but the scribes made certain modifications and additions to indicate OE sounds. Like any alphabetic writing, OE writing was based on a phonetic principle: every letter indicated a separate sound. This principle, however, was not always observed, even at the earliest stages of phonetic spelling. Some OE letters indicated two or more sounds; some letters stood for positional variants of phonemes: a and æ. Fricatives stood for 2 sounds each: a voiced and a voiceless consonant.

The letters could indicate short and long sounds. The length of the vowels is shown by a macron or by a line above the letter; long consonants are indicated by a double letter.

 

 

Verner’s Law

Careful investigation of Grimm’s Law revealed some inconsistencies, which were generally explained as exceptions to the rule. In some cases it is voiced stops rather than voiceless fricatives that correspond in Germanic to IE voiceless stop. For example,

Latin Greek Sanskrit Gothic Old English
Pater     pater pitar   fadar fæder
  [t]   [θ]?? [d]  

The Danish scholar Karl Verner was the first to explain them as the result of further development of Germanic languages. According to Verner, all the early PG voiceless fricatives [f, θ, h] which arose under Grimm’s Law, became voiced between vowels if the preceding vowel was unstressed; otherwise they remained voiceless. The voicing of fricatives occurred in early PG at the time when the stress was not yet fixed on the root-morpheme.

[f – v- b] seofon

[θ – ð – d] O Icel. hundrað – hundert

[h – g] Goth. swaihro –OE sweger

[s – z – r] Lat. auris – Goth. auso – Icel. eyra (ear)

The change of [z] into [r] is called rhotacism.

As a result of voicing, there arose an interchange of consonants in the grammatical forms of the word, termed grammatical interchange. Part of the forms retained a voiceless fricative, while other forms acquired a voiced fricative. For example, heffen (Inf.) - huob Past sg.) heave; ceosan (choose) curon (Past pl.). Some modern English words retained traces of Verner’s Law: death – dead; was- were, raise – rear.

Throughout history, PG vowels displayed a strong tendency to change. The changes were of the following kinds: qualitative and quantitative, dependent and independent. Qualitative changes affect the quality of the sound, for example [o - a] or [p – f]; quantitative changes are those which make long sounds short or short sounds long. For example,[ i – i:]; dependent changes are restricted to certain positions when a sound may change under the influence of the neighbouring sounds or in a certain type of a syllable; independent changes or regular (spontaneous) take place irrespective of phonetic conditions, that is they may affect a certain sound in all positions. In accented syllables the oppositions between vowels were carefully maintained and the number of stressed vowels grew. In unaccented positions the original contrasts between vowels were weakened or lost; the distinction of short and long vowels in unstressed syllables had been shortened. As for originally short vowels, they tended to be reduced to a neutral sound, losing their qualitative distinctions and were often dropped in unstressed final syllables (fiskaz).

Strict differentiation of long and short vowels is regarded as an important characteristic of the Germanic group. Long vowels tended to become closer and to diphthongize, short vowels often changed into more open vowels. IE short [o] changed in Germanic into more open vowel [a] and thus ceased to be distinguished from the original IE [a]; in other words in PG they merged into [o]. IE long [a:] was narrowed to [o:] and merged with [o:]. For example, Lat. nox Goth. nahts; Lat. mater OE modor; Sans. bhra:ta OE bro:ðor.

LECTURE 3/ LECTURE 4

HISTORICAL CONDITIONS

Scandinavian Raids

In the 8th c. raiders from Scandinavia (the Danes) made their first plundering attacks on England. The struggle of the English against the Scandinavians lasted over 300 years, in the course of which period more than half of England was occupied by the invaders and reconquered again. The Scandinavians subdued Northumbria and East Anglia, ravaged the eastern part of Mercia, and advanced on Wessex. Like their predecessors, the West Germanic tribes, they came in large numbers to settle in the new areas. They founded many towns and villages in northern England with a mixed population made up of the English and the Danes. Since the languages of the conquerors and the conquered were similar, linguistic amalgamation was easy (fisc – fiscr).

Wessex stood at the head of the resistance. Under King Alfred of Wessex, one of the greatest figures in English history, by the peace treaty of 878 England was divided into two parts: the north-eastern half was called Danelag (Danelaw) and the south-western part united under the leadership of Wessex. The reconquest of Danish territories was carried on successfully by Alfred’s successors, but in the late 10th century Danish raids were renewed again; they reached a new climax in the early 11th century headed by Swayn and Canute (Knut). The attacks were followed by demands for regular payments of large sums of money called Danegeld (Danish money) collected from many districts and towns. In 1017 Canute was acknowledged as king, and England became part of a great northern empire, comprising Denmark and Norway. On Canute’s death (1035) his kingdom broke up and England regained political independence; by that time it was a single state divided into 6 earldoms.

 

The Middle English Period

 

The New English Period

 

Normalising Tendencies.

LECTURE 5

OLD ENGLISH PERIOD

OE is so far removed from Mod English that one may take it for an entirely different language; this is largely due to the peculiarities of its pronunciation.

The survey of OE phonetics deals with word accentuation, the system of vowels and consonants and their origins. The OE sound system developed from the PG system. It underwent multiple changes in the pre-written periods of history, especially in Early OE. The diachronic description of phonetics those early periods will show the specifically English tendencies of development and the immediate sources of the sounds in the age of writing.

 

Word Stress

The system of word accentuation inherited from PG underwent no changes in Early OE.

In OE a syllable was made prominent by an increase in the force of articulation; in other words, a dynamic or a force stress was employed. In disyllabic and polysyllabic words the accent fell on the root-morpheme or on the first syllable. Word stress was fixed; it remained on the same syllable in different grammatical forms of the words, and, as a rule, did not shift in word-building either. For example, the Nom. hlāford, cyning, Dat. hlāforde, cyninge.

Polysyllabic words, especially compounds, may have had 2 stresses, chief and secondary, the chief stress being fixed on the first root-morpheme, and the secondary stress on the second. For example, Norðmonna, here the chief stress falls on the first component, while the second component gets the secondary stress; the Gen. plural ending – a is unstressed.

In words with prefixes the position of the stress varied: verb prefixes were unaccented, while in nouns and adjectives the stress was commonly fixed on the prefix: ā-` risan, `mis-dæd

 

Old English Vowel System

 

The system of OE vowels in the 9th and 10th centuries is shown below:

Monophthongs

Short vowles Long vowels

Front vowels

[i] fisc, scip [y] fyllan, pytt [e] sprecan, helpan [i:] wīn, tīd [y:] brÿd, wÿscan [e:] fēt, tēθ  

Back vowels

[u] sunu, cumin [o] folc, cos [a] faran, caru [a] – positional variants: [æ] glæd, hwæt [o] mann,(monn) cann (conn) [u:] hūs, tūn [o:] fōt, bōk, gōd [a:] ān, wrāte    

Diphthongs

[ea] healf, wearm (before 1, r + cons., and before h instead of [a] [ea:] hēah, ēare
[eo] steora, feohtan [eo:] deop, leoht
[io] siofun (f pronounced v in intervocal position) [io:] stīoran
[ie] scield, nieht [[ie:] cīese, hīeran

 

OE vowels underwent different kinds of alterations: qualitative and quantitative, dependent and independent. In accented syllables the oppositions between vowels were clearly maintained. In unaccented positions the original contrasts between vowels was weakened or lost; the distinction of short and long vowels was neutralised so that by the age of writing the long vowels in unstressed syllables had been shortened. As for originally short vowels, they tended to be reduced to a neutral sound, losing their qualitative distinctions and were often dropped in unstressed final syllables.

Changes in the system of vowels:

1) Fracture/breaking (преломление) – diphthongization of short vowels ‘a’, ‘e’ before the clusters: ‘r+ con.’, ‘l + con.’, ‘ h+ con., final ‘ h’: ærm – earm, herte – heorte, selh – seolh;

2) Gradation /ablaut: (alternation of vowels in different grammatical forms: in strong verbs: Infinitive (giban), Past. sing. (gaf), Past Pl. (gebum), Second Part. (gibans);

3) Palatalisation: diphthongisation of vowels under the influence of the initial palatal consonants ‘g’, ‘c’ (before front vowels) and the cluster ‘sc’ (all vowels): gefan – giefan, scacan – sceacan;

4) Mutation/Umlaut (перегласовка) - a change of vowel caused by partial assimilation to the following vowel: i-mutation – caused by ‘i’, ‘j’ of the following syllable: namnian – nemnan, fullian- fyllan; back/velar mutation – phonetic change caused by a back vowel (u, o, a) of the following syllable, which resulted in the diphthongisation of the preceding vowel: hefon – heofon;

5) Contraction: if, after a consonant had dropped, two vowels met inside a word, they were usually contracted into one long vowel: slahan – sleahan – sle:an;

6) Lengthening of Vowels: before ‘nd’, ‘ld, ‘mb’: bindan – bīndan; climban – clīmban

 

MIDDLE ENGLISH PERIOD

 

In the ME period a great change affected the entire system of vowel phonemes. OE had both short and long vowel phonemes, and each of these could occur in any phonetic environment, that is, they were absolutely independent phonemic units. As a result of important changes coming into the vowel system in the 10th-12th centuries, the ME vowel system was basically different. While in OE quantity (length/shortness) was a distinctive phonemic feature, in ME (by the 13th c.) quantity of vowels becomes dependent on their environment, exactly on what follows. In some phonetic environments only short vowels can appear, while in others only long vowels can appear. Thus quantity is no longer a phonemically relevant feature and becomes a merely phonetic peculiarity of a vowel sound. Let’s consider the changes that took place during the ME period.

Word Stress

During the MdE period stress acquired greater positional freedom and began to play a more important role in word derivation. It was caused by phonetic assimilation of thousands of loan-words adopted during this period. New accentual patterns are found in numerous MdE loan-words from French. Probably, when they first entered the English language they retained their original stress on the ultimate or penultimate syllable. This kind of stress could not last long. Gradually, as loan-words were assimilated, the word stress was moved closer to the beginning of the word in line with the English (Germanic) system. This shift is accounted for by what is known as the ‘recessive tendency’ In disyllabic words the accent moved to the first syllable in conformity with the pattern of native words. In words of three and more syllables the shift of the stress could be caused by the recessive tendency and also by ‘the rhythmic tendency’, which required a regular alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables. Under the rhythmic tendency, a secondary stress could arise at a distance of one syllable from the original stress: reco`mmendan – recommend. In many polysyllabic words both tendencies; the recessive and the rhythmic operated together and brought about several changes. For example, in MnE consolation we find the results of the shift from the final to the preceding syllable [lei] due to the recessive tendency and a secondary stress on the first syllable. Sometimes the shifting of the word stress should be attributed to certain morphological factors. Thus prefixes of many verbs were not stressed in accordance with the OE tradition while corresponding nouns received the stress on the first syllable: present –pre-sent. This example shows that the role of word accentuation has grown; word stress performs a phonological function as it distinguishes a verb from a noun. The position of word stress became relatively free and its phonological application has widened: it can be shifted in word derivation, though it is never moved in building grammatical forms.

 

Unstressed vowels

Levelling of unstressed vowels: all unstressed vowels were as a rule weakened and reduced to a neutral vowel, which was denoted by the letter –e. Thus, the infinitive suffix – an was reduced to – en: tellan – tellen, in a similar way: sunu – sune, sone. This weakening of unstressed vowels is closely connected with developments in declension and conjugation. From the 13th c. onwards, some dialects showed certain vacillation in spelling unstressed vowels, which probably reflected peculiarities of pronunciation: askid, stonus.

 

Stressed Vowels

One of the most important sound changes of the Early MDE period of the loss of OE diphthongs and the growth of new diphthongs, with new qualitative and quantitative distinctions.

 

Monophthongization of OE Diphthongs

All OE diphthongs were monophthongized in ME.: eald – ald, healf –half, earm –arm (poor). But before ‘ld’ ‘ea’ yielded different results in different dialects. OE short ‘eo’ changed first into the vowel ‘ö’ spelt ‘eo’. In other dialects it changed into ‘e’ heorte – hörte-herte. (heart). OE long eo: changed into long closed e:, often spelt ‘ee’: deo:p – de:p, deep.

At the same time a new set of diphthongs developed from some sequences of vowels and consonants due to the vocalization of OE [j] and [γ], that is to their change into vowels: these sounds between after vowels changed into [i] and [u] and formed diphthongs together with the preceding vowel: OE dæg developed into day[dai]. These changes gave rise to two sets of diphthongs: with i-glides and u-glides {ei, ai, au, ou). In addition to the diphthongs developed from native sources, similar diphthongs – with i-and u-glides are found in some MdE loan words: boy, joy, pause, cause. The formation of new diphthongs was an important event in the history of the language. By that time the OE diphthongs had been contracted into monophthongs; the newly formed MdE diphthongs differed from the OE in structure: they had an open nucleus and a closer glide; they were arranged into a system consisting of two sets o (with i-glides and u-glides) but were not contrasted through quantity as long to short.

 

Quantitative vowel changes

Shortening and Lengthening of Vowels: a long vowel before two consonants is shortened: OE – ce:pan (infinitive), ME ke:pen, but Past tense – kepte; but it remains long in other environments. But long vowels remain long before ‘the lengthening’ consonant groups: ld, nd, mb: we:nen, but we:nde (past simple). Long consonants also remain long before – st: lae:sta (least) – le:st. In the 13th c. short vowels were lengthened in open syllables. Lengthening affected the short vowels a, e, o.: talu (tale) - ta:le, macian – ma:ken, etc. The narrow vowels i and u remained as a rule unaffected by this change, and thus the difference between short i and long and also between short u and long retained its quality as a phonemically relevant feature.

Changes of individual vowels:

Short and long ‘a’: OE short ‘a’ usually remained unchanged in ME. OE a/o before a nasal developed differently in different dialects. In West Midland ‘o’ was preserved: mon, con; in other dialects (Northern, East Midland and Southern) there is ‘a’ man, can. OE long ‘a’ also developed in different ways in different dialects. In Northern it remained unchanged, while in Midland and Southern it changed into long ‘o’: fa:- fo: (foe); ha:m – ho:m, etc.

Short ‘ae’ and long ‘ae’. OE short ‘ae’ in most dialects developed into short ‘a’: glaed – glad, aeppel – appel. But in the West Midland and Kentish it developed into ‘e’: gled, eppal. OE West Saxon long ‘ae’ changed into long open ‘e:’ slae:pan – sle:pen; in other dialects this ‘ae:’ had changed into closed ‘e:’. This closed ‘e:’ is preserved in ME.

Short Y and long Y: OE short ‘y’ developed differently in different dialects. In Northern and East Midland it changed into short ‘i’. In Kentish it became ‘e’ in the remaining dialects it was unchanged. Hence three dialectal variants: ‘first’, ferst’, ‘fyrst’. For example, the word ‘bury ‘ here the pronunciation is Kentish, but the spelling is South-Western. OE long’y’ developed in the same way as the short ‘y’.

Conclusion: The ME sound system differs from the OE system: 1) OE dipthongs or ‘ea’ and ‘eo’ type disappeared 2) diphthongs of the ‘ei’ ‘ai’ type arose 3) vowel quantity became dependent on phonetic environment.

From the phonemic point of view the following points should me stated: 1) vowel quantity lost its phonemic significance, that is two vowel phonemes can no longer be distinguished by quantity: length versus shortness. Thus the number of vowel phonemes was reduced. 2) on the other hand, the appearance of new diphthongs [ai], [ei] [ au], [ou] marks the rise of four new vowel phonemes. In this way the reduction in the number of vowel phonemes due to changes in quantity is partly counteracted. 3) the number of consonant phonemes increased; the sounds [f, v] which had been allophones of one phoneme, became separate phonemes, no longer dependent on their environment, the same is true with [s,z].

 

MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD

 

Vowels: 1) loss of the neutral sound of unstressed endings (in the 15th c.) 2) loss of vowels in intermediate syllables: chapiter – chapter, medicine 3) change of [er] into [ar] with some exceptions: ferre – far, sterre – star, but occasionally this change did not take place: certain, prefect, etc. when it didn’t change into [ar], it eventually developed into [e:], but ‘clerk, ‘Derby’.

The Great Vowel Shift began in the 15th century: all long vowels were narrowed and the narrowest were diphthongized:

Take [ta:ka] – [teik]; beat [be:t]/[ bi:t]; meet [me:t]/[mi;t]; like [li:ka]/[laik]; boat [bo:t]/[bout]; tool [to:l]/[tu:l]; house [hu:s]/[haus]. All those changes show one general tendency: narrowing of long vowels and diphthongization of the narrowest of them. All these changes occurred gradually, without being noticed by the speakers.

Influence of [r]: when a long vowel was followed by ‘r’, new phonemes came into being: (ia], [ea], [ua]: fare [fa;r] – [fea]; tire [ti:r] /[taia], power [pu:ar] /[ paua].

Some words have sounds which do not correspond to the general law of the shift.

Long [u:] remained unchanged when followed by a labial consonant: droop, room; [i:] remained unchanged in words borrowed from French: machine, police, etc.; long open [e:] did not always change into [i:], it was shortened in some words head, death, etc.

Other changes:

- short ‘a’ into ‘ae’: hat, cat; but when it was preceded by [w] it developed into [o]: what, was, ec.

- In the 16th c. 2 new long vowels arose [a:], [o:]

- [a:] – before: bath, father, brass, cast, ask, clasp, calm

- [o:] – before: cork, port, autumn, dawn

- long [u:] was shortened before [k]: book, cook; also in good, foot, etc.

- rise of long [e:] – fir, sir, fur, curtain, worm, word, heard, learn

- short [u] changed into [^]: cut, but, love, son, rough, enough; blood, flood; remained unchanged before labial consonants: pull, full, bull, etc.

- unstressed vowels were reduced either to [i] or [a]: begin, wishes, mountain, etc.

 

 

LECTURE 1

HISTORY OF LANGUAGE AS A LINGUISTIC DISCIPLINE



Поделиться:


Последнее изменение этой страницы: 2017-02-07; просмотров: 377; Нарушение авторского права страницы; Мы поможем в написании вашей работы!

infopedia.su Все материалы представленные на сайте исключительно с целью ознакомления читателями и не преследуют коммерческих целей или нарушение авторских прав. Обратная связь - 44.210.107.64 (0.118 с.)